Monday, July 19, 2010

Girls Are Geniuses Too

I'd like to throw out a quick encouragement for readers to have a look at the new link on the right, Girl Genius. This is something I started reading about two years ago; but after reading fifteen or twenty panels, I lost interest and quit. There wasn't a lot of text, the continuity and transitions tended to be jumpy and overall the storyline seemed like it was going to go places that didn't interest me.

I was so wrong.

A couple of weeks ago, out of boredom, I took another crack at it. Almost immediately after the point when I'd first quit, the story started to kick in, and after about forty panels I was completely hooked. As a story it is crazy complicated, with many, many characters and a great deal of in-story references that must be grasped to get what the story is about (and the artist seems in no way willing to stop adding characters and complexity) ... but it is funny, clever, smart and the story lines do eventually get wrapped up - or so I assume, because its two weeks later and I'm still reading.

That's because the first panel begins in November, 2002, and the happily insane artist has been producing three panels a week for the last eight years. I'm about half way through the story at present, thoroughly enjoying that I have another comfortable week or two of reading ahead of me. The comic is still in production, so at some time I will catch up and find myself hanging like everyone else for my weekly fix.

Give it a good try. For those fascinated by steampunk, this is required reading. I kid you not.

I had a similarity experience - a couple of years ago I stumbled on to Girl Genius. I have enjoyed Phil Foglio's stuff from way back in Dragon Magazine, but after a few of pages I lost interest. Then, after reading your blog, I decided to give it another try. Geez. I haven't slept much since then and I've made my way into Volume 7. It's fantastic and given me great ideas for my Savage Worlds games. Thanks for nudging me back to Phil. :)

Additional Content

Began playing Dungeons and Dragons at the age of 15, thirty-eight years ago. I am a steadfast AD&D gamer, but I have made so many changes to the original system that my present model is something of a Frankenstein's monster of role-playing design. I continue to make new changes every day to my game's structure and function.

The Net has described me as a 'mad scientist of RPG blogging,' and a 'Quixotic bastard' ... and also 'the most gonzo - and the grouchiest - old school DM.'

Progress on The Fifth Man

I have chosen to back up a bit again, as I am unhappy with chapter 17 and I feel ready to start it again. It is a difficult chapter; exposition chapters always are. It has been too long since I've picked up this book; readers are hardly likely to notice that I've changed this description. Nevertheless, I am at this again.

Progress on the third draft, finalized (will likely be some continuity fixes) stand as follows:

May 9, 2018

Distance today: 1,025 words

Total distance: 73,517

Chapter in progress: 17

Please Support Me

Writing the book takes its toll, particularly as I am just another grunt working for minimum wage in the real world. Every donation helps me have time where I am not performing physical labor and I can put my energy towards the things that you, the reader, likes.